


Striking A Cord

by SmolDargon



Series: Adventures in Anatomy [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Post-Undertale Pacifist Route, anatomical discussion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:49:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29981739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmolDargon/pseuds/SmolDargon
Summary: Humans are confusing. Luckily, our favorite skeleton has one who can answer his questions.
Series: Adventures in Anatomy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2205429
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Striking A Cord

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever upload, and my first attempt at fanfiction. When reading, keep in mind I have no idea what I'm doing.

"HUMAN, I DID NOT KNOW YOU WERE A DOCTOR!"

Papyrus carefully removed a thick book from the shelf.

"I'm…not? What gave you that impression?"

He gestured to the book in question, "WELL, WHY ELSE WOULD YOU OWN A BOOK ON HUMAN ANATOMY?"

"Ah, yes, Grey's Anatomy, a classic. It was written a long time ago, and yet still remains largely accurate. I have this book because anatomy and physiology are fascinating. Especially since humans are basically just an amalgamation of software bugs that somehow all manage to work together to make a functional organism."

She spoke with a mixture of reverence and cynicism. She seemed to view the body as some sort of science experiment gone wrong; a volatile marriage of form-function and blind luck.

She began pacing as she continued, "It's so….complicated! One misplaced base pair, one altered amino acid and BAM, suddenly your blood cells are all weirdly bent instead of being the nice, round, flat, donut-shaped things. And yet, we have mechanisms to keep the insides at just the right temperature and pH for literally decades. What a fucking mess!"

The look on the skeleton's face was enough to quiet her for the moment. He seemed concerned that she might burst into flames or something.

"THAT SOUNDS….HORRIFYING. AND CONFUSING. PERHAPS YOU SHOULD DO AN EXPLAIN."

She blanched, chuckling nervously.  
"It's um...well, I'm hardly qualified to do any….look, I'm not a doctor, I just enjoy biology. My degree is just a four-year one, and it's rather broad. I can explain the basics to you, but if you want to know more than that, I'd suggest auditing an actual college course."

Papyrus maintained his serious expression, and decided to take the human up on her offer immediately, approaching her and leaning down to bring himself more or less to her eye level.

"ALRIGHT, FIRST QUESTION: HOW DO YOU EVEN SPEAK? YOU DON'T HAVE ANY MAGIC, HOW DO YOU GET SOUND OUT?"

The human sighed in relief. _Good, I was afraid he was going to ask about something difficult like reproduction or mental illness…_

"Oh, that's an easy one! Inside our throat, we have these flaps of tissue that we can vibrate at different frequencies to produce sound. We get our unique vocal sound from the size and shape of our throat and the sinuses in our skulls. And we turn that sound into actual words by changing the configuration of our tongue, lips, and teeth."

"NO WONDER YOUR FONT LOOKS SO ODD."

"My what now?"

It was the human's turn to be confused. She was fascinated by monsters, particularly the skeleton brothers. However, she also found them frustrating; it seemed most of their physiology was attributed to just "magic".

Papyrus explained further, apparently used to the confusion, "WELL, EVERYONE HAS THEIR OWN UNIQUE SOUND, BUT THEY ALSO HAVE DIFFERENT FONTS! IT'S A FORM OF….OH, WHAT DO YOU HUMANS CALL IT…THAT THING WHERE YOU CAN HEAR COLORS OR SMELL NUMBERS."

The human looked a little more at ease.

"Synesthesia. Is that a skeleton thing or a monster thing? Or is it just a 'Papyrus' thing?"

The skeleton's face lit up, "YES, SYNESTHESIA! AND NO, IT'S A SKELETON MONSTER THING. MOST OTHER MONSTERS CAN'T SEE FONTS OR INTERFACES LIKE WE CAN," he silenced the question forming on her lips with a gentle wave of his hand, "THAT'S….A WHOLE DIFFERENT EXPLANATION. THE POINT IS, YOUR FONT LOOKS DIFFERENT FROM OTHER MONSTER FONTS. ACTUALLY, ALL HUMANS HAVE FONTS THAT LOOK DIFFERENT FROM MONSTER FONTS….BUT YOURS IS PARTICULARLY UNIQUE."

The human suddenly seemed a bit bashful. She was still getting the hang of praise and recognition for things beyond her usefulness.

"If, uh….the appearance of my words is anything like the sound of them…it's probably because I have a deeper voice than most other females. I just don't see the attraction to the high-pitched, nasally voices those other girls have. It's like they're constantly talking in falsetto, how is that even comfortable?"

She shook her head and sighed, "I'm getting off topic…the point is, we have actual physical structures that allow us to move and behave as we do. Everything in the body has a function, although some of them are poorly understood."

"HOW CAN ONE NOT UNDERSTAND HOW THEIR OWN INSIDES WORK? THAT SEEMS….INEFFICIENT."

She somehow managed to look both sympathetic to his confusion and offended by his statement, "When you're as complicated a creature as a human… if our brains were so simple we could understand them, we would be so simple we couldn't. There's too many intricate, molecular-level functions to our metabolism to ever hope to understand them all. Even human doctors don't understand everything about the entire body, they just usually specialize into a narrow field. That's why we have so many different types of doctors. Some just treat the skin, some just treat the brain, some can perform any basic surgery, others can only perform a few specific surgeries geared towards a particular organ or organ system. We are too complex for any one of us to fully understand how we work or what makes us tick. It is both fascinating and infuriating."

Papyrus considered this for a moment, then decided it was probably best to get back to their original topic; she could get a little feisty when pushed to answer things she didn't know or didn't want to discuss.

"SO WHEN YOU SAY YOU CAN VIBRATE LITTLE PIECES OF YOUR THROAT….ARE YOU BEING LITERAL?"

"Well, yes! It's actually kinda cool."

"HOW DID HUMANS EVEN FIGURE THIS OUT? CAN YOU SEE THEM FLAPPING ABOUT IF YOU OPEN WIDE ENOUGH?"

The human chuckled softly.

"I'm not sure how they originally discovered it, but I'm not sure it's visible from the outside without an endoscope."

The skeleton gave her a confused look. "ENDOSCOPE? THAT SOUNDS MADE-UP."

"Everything is made-up. Especially in English. It's three languages in a trench coat, what did you expect? But yes, an endoscope. It's a tool used in medicine. Picture a camera on a long, flexible hose. And they just sorta…stick it inside whatever orifice to get a look around."

His look of horror and disgust was priceless.

"PLEASE TELL ME YOU'RE JOKING!"

"I wish I was…. It sounds uncomfortable at best."

The two of them collectively shuddered at the thought. Papyrus didn't even have internal organs to go digging around in, and he decided he was rather grateful for this fact. Human medicine was horrific.

She gave him a look of sympathy, and offered an alternate explanation.

"Well, the easiest way to show you…. Put your hand here. "

She pointed at the front of her neck, guiding his hand into the correct position. Papyrus was shocked when she began speaking…and he could actually feel the vibrations in her throat.

"It's a fun thing to show people. So many humans don't realize the neat little changes that happen in the neck when they speak."

It was an interesting experience, to be sure. He could feel the difference between the higher and lower pitches in her words. Her windpipe actually shifted up and down as she spoke. He idly wondered if his own neck did the same thing.

"WOWIE….THIS MUST FEEL SO INTERESTING WHEN YOU SING."

She actually laughed at this statement, startling Papyrus further with the movement. He hadn't expected the vibrations to start and stop so suddenly. But that was exactly what was happening.

"Bold of you to assume I sing. I speak, I whisper, I monologue, sometimes I even hum. But I do not sing."

He looked stricken.

"NOT EVEN A LITTLE?"

"Nope."

"WHAT ABOUT IN THE SHOWER? SHOWER SINGING IS THE BEST!"

"You mean that resonance chamber where the neighbors are sure to hear me? Absolutely not."

He pressed a little further, disbelief etched into his features.

"WHAT ABOUT IN THE CAR? EVEN IF SOMEONE NOTICED, IT'S NOT LIKE THEY'D REMEMBER!"

"Never."

"IN THE WOODS?? SURELY YOU SING SOMEWHERE, EXPRESSION IS A VITAL PART OF LIFE!"

He seemed truly worried now, as if she'd told him she wasn't getting enough to eat.

"Nowhere. I do not sing. I haven't since I was a kid. It's not all that important."

Papyrus spluttered, almost at a loss for words. Almost.

"NO WONDER YOU HUMANS CAN'T USE MAGIC ANYMORE, YOU AREN'T TAKING PROPER CARE OF YOUR SOUL!"

She softened a little. It seemed he was well and truly upset by this development. Maybe he had a point. After all, this was the same person who had been so devastated when he'd learned that some humans abandon their young instead of raising them properly. She remembered he'd said such an act could permanently scar a monster, or perhaps even kill them outright with the damage to their soul.

"Look, I didn't even believe souls were a real thing until I started hanging with you guys. If I hadn't seen the little glow in your ribcage, I still wouldn't have believed it. I'm still skeptical about the whole thing, honestly."

Papyrus's worry changed to grim determination. He could help her with this.

"HUMAN. WE ARE NOT LEAVING THIS ROOM UNTIL YOU SING SOMETHING."

She shifted anxiously, withdrawing from his touch on her neck. He knew she would immediately begin to look for some sort of excuse to leave or otherwise escape the situation, and he considered turning her blue.

_No, that would only make things worse. Perhaps I can talk down some of that anxiety._

"I really don't think that's necessary! I've lived for years without singing, I don't think it's going to kill me to go a little longer."

"THAT MAY BE, BUT I THINK IT WOULD BE BEST TO GO AHEAD AND RIP THE METAPHORICAL BANDAGE OFF NOW RATHER THAN LETTING THIS FESTER ANY LONGER."

She drew back another step, looking more fervently for an out. She knew he wasn't going to hurt her, but the anxiety of the situation was becoming unbearable.

"WHAT IF….I SANG FIRST? I DON'T SOUND ALL THAT GOOD, BUT MAYBE IT WOULD HELP YOU FEEL BETTER ABOUT THIS. OR MAYBE WE COULD TRY ONE OF THOSE DUETS! ALPHYS IS ALWAYS TRYING TO WRANGLE ME INTO GOING TO TOWN ON THOSE ANIME INTROS, BUT…TWO HIGH VOICES CAN'T CARRY THE WHOLE INTRO AND UNDYNE….WELL, WE WON'T EMBARRASS HER HERE."

The human's curiosity was starting to get the better of her. She had always wondered whether the brothers were any good at singing, not having vocal cords and all. But the shame that would surely follow once he heard how bad she sounded….was the knowledge worth the risk?

"I don't even know any good songs to duet, or what your taste in music is, much less if I'd know anything you suggested."

He knew she would be curious, and was hoping it would be enough to convince her to try. Surely she didn't sound that bad…right? But she had a point. He needed to pick something they both knew and enjoyed. Something she wouldn't dream of turning down. _What song possesses the irresistibility I really need right now?_

He pulled out his phone, scrolling through his collection of music. A little over halfway down, he found his answer.

"WHAT ABOUT THIS ONE?"

_Is this the real life?_

_Is this just fantasy?_

_Oh dear god, NO, not Bohemian Rhapsody. No human worth their weight in salt would dare not sing this. It's a classic! Dammit…..Let's just hope the embarrassment kills me quickly._

She finally caved, joining in quietly. He led, hoping his confidence would eventually be able to convince her to sing a little louder. Just as she had indicated, her voice was indeed lower than he expected. Even the timbre was off; he couldn't tell whether to classify her as an alto or a tenor. She seemed able to pass for either.

_Mamaaaaa, oooooohhhh…_

_Didn't mean to make ya cry…_

Her voice combined the low tones and masculine timbre of a man's voice with the legato and vibrato of a woman's. It was a strange thing to listen to, and quite pleasant. There were quite a few lines she performed in such a way that they would have given Papyrus goosebumps if he had skin.

_I see a little silhouetto of a man_

She was equally surprised by his singing voice. She hadn't figured Papyrus for a high tenor. His vocal range extended much higher than hers. His energy was contagious, though, and soon enough she fell into the role of backup singer.

_Easy come, easy go, will you let me go?_   
_Bismillah, no! We will not let you go!_

_(Let him go!)_

She surprised Papyrus greatly when her low tones from Bismillah suddenly gave way to the higher pitches in Let him go. And again when she provided a repeat performance during the rest of the stanza. It seemed she could certainly hit some of the higher notes, although he could see fairly plainly that it was a difficult endeavor. At some point, his hand had found its way back to her neck, and as he'd suspected, it felt very interesting when she sang. Especially when she jumped from the lows to the highs and back. In the lower tones, her entire neck seemed to vibrate thunderously.

_So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye?_

_So you think you can love me and leave me to die?_

She finally took the lead in the last movement of the song. It was a short section, but the lower pitches were perfect for her voice. She really seemed to have become comfortable, except that she rather pointedly avoided looking in his direction. It seemed she was afraid of his reaction.

He was disappointed when the song finally ended. She sank right back into an awkward silence, seemingly prepared to forget their little jam session had happened.

"Well…. I hope you got the answers you were looking for."

"INDEED I DID. YOU HAVE A LOVELY SINGING VOICE."

She flushed bright red all the way down to her collar. She hadn't been expecting to hear something positive about her voice. She didn't seem able to generate a response for that statement. As usual, she had been so focused on the potential negative outcomes, she had completely discounted the possibility of a positive one.

"I….think you may need your ears checked…"

"I DON'T HAVE EARS. JUST AN INNATE ABILITY TO SENSE TALENT IN OTHERS!"

_Oh, that giant cinnamon roll….He is a pretty bad liar. I think he might actually be telling the truth and not just saying something to appease my ego._

"Well….it was supposed to be a biology lesson. I suppose there's nothing wrong with hands-on learning. Sometimes that's the best kind of learning. I didn't learn my horsemanship from books, after all."

Inwardly, Papyrus was pleased with this response. _She didn't outright reject the compliment. This is good! Normally she argues about it or denies it._

"SO….DO YOU THINK YOU MIGHT BE WILLING TO TRY THIS AGAIN SOMETIME? I MEANT IT WHEN I SAID IT WAS GOOD FOR YOUR SOUL."

She was silent for a long, tense moment. She responded at last, haltingly, "Ask me again another time. You might like my answer better then."

It was a common way for her to answer personal questions, the whole "ask me later" shtick. It was a way to suggest the possibility of a better outcome without giving a promise for it outright. The premise irked Papyrus to no end, but it was a better answer than a straight denial.

"I WILL ABSOLUTELY ASK YOU AGAIN. AND AGAIN. I MEANT IT WHEN I SAID YOU SANG WELL. YOU SHOULDN'T BE SO HARD ON YOURSELF. EVEN SOMEONE AS DEVOTED TO HARD SCIENCE AS YOU CAN'T POSSIBLY BE ALL COLD FACTS AND NO SOFT, SQUISHY MORTALITY."

She just shrugged, resigned to the fact that this man was apparently hellbent on helping her improve her life. She supposed she could live with that.

**Author's Note:**

> For those wondering, this was written as a sort of self-insert, but details about the human are kept intentionally vague on purpose. I may post descriptions and headcanons later, but the writing will still be left vague.


End file.
